Design Jones

Having long given up on ever growing a moustache myself, I’ve just treated my macbook to a moustache of it’s very own from Stick with me, baby! HERE. This site is the latest venture of Herraiz Soto & Co (HERE), the Barcelona agency behind the OmmWriter I blogged on earlier this year. They are also responsible for this “beautiful” interactive music video for Labuat – you can have a go yourself HERE but be warned you could get lost in it for hours! Also on a side note, the copywriting on both the agencies main site and Stick with me, baby! is just fantastic – the buying process was a joy filled with phrases I never expected to see in a shopping cart.

The disciplined grid-based design of the Inventory site HERE really caught my eye. Great to see some lovely type like this online, all too rare! Obviously this site takes strong visual cues from the print version but the application works really well. You can see some of Stuart Hobday’s other work HERE on The Behance Network.

Portland based agency, Bureau of Betterment have created a “modular ‘patchwork’ design [which] spans easily from web and print to signage applications. Iconic illustrations speak to the natural diversity The Intertwine offers and accessible, playful language evokes the simple pleasure of being outdoors”.

Some really nice clean, open illustrations and great typography, find out more HERE.

(via DesignWorkLife)

Some lovely, quirky and cost effective packaging from Able. You can view more images HERE at thedieline.com and learn more about Able’s work and creative process HERE. Fantastic how it conveys so many brand messages whilst retaining a sense of simplicity and humour.

I spent a really enjoyable evening over at Solihull College last Friday. It was a real joy to see the students I’ve been working with over the last year reaching the end of their course and heading out into the world of design. I have to say the show was incredible well thought through and constructed and in terms of an overall standard the students have set the bar pretty high. Congratulations and good luck guys!

If you live in the Solihull area, the show is on all this week and well worth a look.

My first car was a VW Beetle (or Bug to my American readers), aside from that one of my dream cars is a split-screen VW Camper Van. CarType has a gallery HERE featuring scans from original brochures with various branded vans – there’s some fantastic typography and retro styling – I’d love to create a Design Jones version!

According to their website, “The INDEX is an evolving catalogue of materials and articles, some unique and some ordinary, but all exceptional in their purpose, character and origin.” As far as I’m concerned it’s just one more reason that I should be living and working in Brooklyn! You can view their fantastic collection of quirky industrial artifacts HERE. Now all I need is a few plane tickets and an amazing apartment/studio to fit it all in.

My wife has been dropping hints for a dolls house for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure this is her cup of tea but it’s certainly mine! The Emerson house boasts features such as solar-power, recessed LED lighting, six bedrooms, sliding glass doors and two fireplaces! You can order it HERE (or, more realistically, just have a look at the cool pictures).

Loved looking through the portfolio of Italian illustrator, Bombo AKA Maurizio Santucci today. In particular the paper cut pieces are fantastic. Lots of depth and personality – I’d love to see a behind the scenes video of how they are created especially some of the really complex pieces. You can visit his site ‘Bomboland’ HERE.

The 8th trend report from LogoLounge has now been published. You can read it HERE.

“The report should serve you as an ongoing view of where logo design is headed. The word ‘trends’ in itself can have a very negative cast, but in truth, trends aren’t bad. They reveal our growth. It’s our take on them that allows us to move even further forward.”

Here’s some other highlights from Bill Gardner:

“Transparency in logo design has become a bona fide design tool, like type or color, not a trend.”

“We now live in a RGB, not a CMYK world.”

“Text is ever more important in identity design… designers are working hard to make identity messages more succinct and/or direct, and incorporating actual words into logos makes the message all the more immediate.”

“There is plenty of optimism shining through in many designs—or at least clients are trying to bravely declare through their identities that they aren’t the slightest bit afraid.”

“Circles upon circles upon circles, especially nested inside each other and of diminishing sizes, are everywhere, as are building objects from circles.”

“Finally, there is another significant development. For many years, successful logos were built from beautiful shapes. They were usually one color, or perhaps they incorporated a few colors. Now, designers have begun to look at the actual surface of the shapes as an entirely new canvas that can be addressed in myriad ways. Good draftsmanship and good ideas are still crucial to the process, but surface effects now add entirely new levels of meaning.”